THE INDIA MISSION: 


A PAPER BY 


REV. GEORGE L. CHANEY, 


OF BOSTON. 


Head ut the National Conference of Unitarian 
AND OTHER 


CHRISTIAN CHURCHES, 


OCTOBER 24, 1872. 


BOSTON. 
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 


1872. 


PRINTED AT THE SALEM PRESS. 


THE INDIA MISSION. 


In the year 1853-4, the Rev. Chas. T. Brooks went on a voyage 
to India. He landed at Madras and was welcomed with tears of 
joy, by Mr. William Roberts and his little church. At length 
their “prayers had been answered.” So thought these simple 
people, and a missionary had come to them from the fountain head 
of christian love and learning. Mr. Roberts was the son of a de- 
voted christian preacher, a native, who had been won to the truths 
of christianity as taught by the Unitarian church. The father 
had died at his post, and the son, his filial piety overcoming his 
sense of unfitness, had continued his father’s work, hoping some 
day to receive help from those who were of the same religious 
family across the sea. 

The Cape of Good Hope seemed at last to have fulfilled the 
promise of its name, and sent an answer to his prayers, when this 
beaming Saxon face appeared to Wm. Roberts at Madras. But 
Mr. Brooks had not come as a missionary ; not even, by intention, 
as the forerunner of one. He had come on a voyage for the re- 
newal of his health. He left Madras and sailed on to Calcutta. 
There again, his coming quickened desire in the hearts of that faith- 
ful company of believers in one God, and in Jesus Christ, his Son. 
Since the death of Rammohun Roy and the departure of Rey. Mr. 
Adam, they had been left without a leader. The appeal of these 
desolate believers in that distant land so moved the sympathy of 
Mr. Brooks, that he earnestly pressed their claims upon the Ameri- 
can Unitarian Associatian, as soon as he returned to this country. 
The plan of sending a missionary to India was not a new one. 
In 1821, Henry Ware had been in correspondence with Rammo- 
hun Roy and his English convert to Unitarianism, Mr. Adam, 
about this mission, and Norton and Tuckerman and Gannett had 
given the measure their warm approval. An appeal from respon- 
sible residents of Calcutta, both native and English, endorsed by 
the traditional favor of the fathers of our church, and urged by 
the persuasive eloquence of the poet preacher, whose physical 


(3) 


4 THE INDIA MISSION. 


weakness has more than once been the strengthening of his breth 
ren, could not be denied. Before the close of the year 1855, a 
missionary was sent to India. This was Mr. C. H. A. Dall, then 
a young man of rare promise, adding to the honors and graces of 
the university, an enthusiasm of humanity, and a consecration to 
the christian ministry, which seemed to make him peculiarly fitted 
for the work. 

From that day to this, now seventeen years, Mr. Dall has kept 
his post. Although compelled by the demands of health and the 
interests of the mission to return to this country twice in this 
time, his work in India has never been suspended. What that 
work is, and has been, every reader of the quarterly and monthly 
journals during this period has had abundant opportunity of know- 
ing. And _ yet, I question if many men really do know about this 
work. In truth I did not know myself until I was compelled to 
inquire about it, as one of the committee, responsible for its 
management. The letters in which this information was con- 
veyed to us have not been couched in clear, cool, business-like 
phrases, which leave the mind master of the situation. Something 
of the luxuriance of tropical nature makes the letters from India 
not a little dark and umbrageous, and facts and figures dart in and 
out of the woods, oftentimes ‘quite obscured by the rhetoric and 
emotion of the writer. Nevertheless, the facts and figures are there, 
in the published or unpublished letters sent to the India Commit- 
tee. Every fortnight, in peace or war, the punctual letter from 
our India missionary is sure to come. No agent could have been 
more faithful in the frequency or fulness of the reports; and if 
some obscurity has veiled their statement of facts, it is only such 
obscurity as must ensue, when the warm breath of the tropics 
strikes against the clear, cool windows of the north, through - 
whose panes we contemplate our Foreign Mission. If you cannot 
pardon emotion and enthusiasm in a missionary, you cannot have 
him; for without an emotional and enthusiastic nature, no man 
would undertake the thankless service. 

But, to the facts. What are they? After sixteen years of life 
and service in India, what have Mr. Dall and his associates ac- 
complished? For five years, 1855—1860, a small church was 
maintained in Calcutta, and our missionary’s ministry was pat- 
terned after the ordinary New England parish; two sermons on 


THE INDIA MISSION. 5 


Sunday, baptism of converts, visitation of the parish, publication 
of tracts and, as often as possible, a lending hand to every needy 
man or cause. Eighty tracts were printed, forty children and nine 
or ten adults were baptized, five hundred and twenty sermons 
were preached, two on Sunday for five years, and still, ‘‘ the 
heathen, in his blindness, bows down to wood and stone.” Lest 
any unbeliever should think this poverty of result peculiar to 
Unitarian preaching in India, I will say that Mr. Bowen, the de- 
voted missionary of the American Board of Foreign Missions, 
resident at Bombay, frankly confessed to Dr. Norman Macleod, 
that in more than twenty-five years of preaching in that city, he 
had not, to his knowledge, made one convert. 

Clearly something more than preaching, something other than 
the traditional ministry of the church, was needed for India. Mr. 
Dall was among the first to discover and adopt the agency of a 
day school, for secular education, as the best means of reaching 
and converting the youth of India. He did this in the face of 
distrust, both at home and abroad. But the wisdom of his course 
has been acknowledged by the adoption of his method, by all the 
leading missions of other denominations; so that the inspector of 
foreign missions declares to-day that ‘‘ no mission is complete-with- 
out the school.” Ever since 1860, now twelve years, Mr. Dall has 
put the emphasis of his service upon these schools. Nor did he 
slavishly copy the schools of New England. On the contrary, he 
anticipated the probable future of our school system, by adding 
an industrial element to the usual instruction in letters. He es- 
tablished a school of useful arts. The result is, that two hundred 
and forty pupils each year come under the instruction of our mis- 
sion schools. And during these twelve years, such intimacy has 
grown up between the missionary and his pupils, that he numbers 
2,250 boys and men, 260 women and 660 rovers; in all, 3,170 
people, among the recipients of his teaching or help, and the 
objects of his personal interest and care. Who of us can number 
such a parish? ‘Three times a week, Mr. Dall addresses the 
scholars on religious themes, enforcing the teaching of the chris- 
tian gospels. Who of us preaches three times a week? Add to 
the daily task of teaching and superintendence of the schools, the 
writing and publication of tracts, and the frequent preparation 
and delivery of lectures, and remember that these things are done 


6 THE INDIA MISSION. 


with the thermometer at a height which is never seen in the hot- 
test months in this country, and you may understand somewhat 
the labor of a missionary in Calcutta. For one, I find no excuse 
for easy complaint of my brother Dall, so long as I am glad to 
shun the mild fervors of a New England summer in the city. 
Nor do I think a company of ministers in this temperate clime 
have a right to criticise the list of Hindoo converts, when 
they have themselves agreed that ‘‘no soul was ever converted 
in the month of August.” 

The facts I have stated about the India Mission came in their 
succinct form, by the hands of Miss Chamberlain, a lady assistant 
of Mr. Dall, who has visited this country during the last summer, 
and who confirms their accuracy, so far as her observation ex- 
tends, by her own testimony. Mr. Partridge of St. Louis, who 
has visited India within the year, also bears strong testimony to 
the work. And Mr. Aldrich, who spent a year in Calcutta, in our 
employ, describes the daily teaching, which is now the main part 
of our mission, in the same way. He thinks, however, that there 
is a call in Calcutta for Sunday preaching. And it is probable 
that the last twelve years of education in the mission and goy- 
ernment schools have reared an audience of English-speaking 
natives, who would reward any earnest preacher with their atten- 
tion, as often as he should address them on living themes. It 
ought to be stated that the cost of the India Mission including 
the stations at Calcutta, Salem and Secunderabad, is about $3,600. 
Of this sum, nearly one-half comes from Mr. Heyward’s bequest 
for foreign missions. So that only $2,000, at the utmost, goes to 
India, out of the annual contributions to the Association. Put 
this sum by the side of the $461,054, the income of the American 
Board of Foreign Missions for 1871, or the $823,586, the income 
of the Church of England Society, for the. same year, or the 
$107,005, the contribution of the little band of the Moravians, 
and then complain, if you will, of our stipend to India. Unless, 
however, we are prepared to take the ground that a nation of 
200,000,000 people, given over to idolatry, has no claims upon 
ehristian rescue, our complaint must be, not at the size, but at the 
littleness, of the outlay. 

I dare not attempt, within the space fairly appropriated to this 
subject, to portray all the difficulties in the way of Hindoo con- 


THE INDIA MISSION. rf 


version, which even such study as a distant inquirer like myself 
could give has revealed to me. 

I will only ask you to imagine that Lord Cornwallis, in- 
stead of failing in his endeavor to subjugate this America of 
ours, had succeeded ; that Yorktown, instead of witnessing his sur- 
render, had been red with his triumph; imagine that the last 
century had been a century of British rule instead of American 
independence in this land; imagine that the surrender of Wash- 
ington had been followed by a succession of governors sent over 
from England who, in order to fill the coffers of a scheming corpora- 
tion, and increase the government revenues, scrupled at no act of 
injustice, breaking sacred oaths and treaty obligations, on pretexts 
which were more often the invention of a greedy ambition than the 
offence of a rebellious people; conceive these invaders, under 
cover of relieving your several states of the burden of eovern- 
ment, gradually stealing first the functions, then the emoluments, 
and, finally, the very land and property of these United States ; 
conceive a man with the thieving ability of the Tammany leaders, 
the audacity of Brigham Young, the brutality of Nana Sahib, the 
ambition of a Bismarck ; imagine Warren Hastings and Clive let 
loose upon this conquered land and followed in their career of des- 
potism and robbery by other governors, whose virtues never stood 
in the way of new aggrandizements; behold this country, con- 
quered, spoiled, and reduced to terrified subjection, instead of 
being the compeer of England, claiming and receiving damages 
for secondary wrongs; behold all this,—and then imagine a com- 
pany of missionaries of the Church of England landing on these 
shores and attempting to convert us to the Established Religion! 
Would you join? 

I have drawn no imaginary picture, except in its location. India, 
not America, is the land we saw. Cornwallis has had a recompense 
for his American defeat in the success of his Indian campaign ; 
and to-day, a people, only induced by compulsion to accept Eng- 
lish commodities, is urged to adopt, of its own free will, the 
English religion. No wonder christian missions make slow prog- 
ress in a country, under subjection to a christian people, whose 
tardy and partial justice has not yet obliterated the memory of 
terrible wrongs, or removed the disabilities of Hindoo birth and 
nationality ! 


8 THE INDIA MISSION. 


Other things being equal, American missions ought to be more 
acceptable to the inhabitants of India than those of England. If 
any English-speaking nation can persuade them to accept chris- 
tianity, we are that nation. 

But above and beyond the antagonism between the conquering 
and conquered nation, there exists the opposition of irreconcil- 
able customs and principles. Idolatry cannot be shaved down 
into conformity with the spiritual and truthful worship of Him 
who is a Spirit. 

Neither the prejudices nor the privileges of caste can ever be 
reconciled with the requirements of human brotherhood. The early 
espousal of women and their systematized ignorance can never 
consist with the purity and dignity of a christian home, and per- 
manent widowhood is a burden upon woman so unjust, that chris- 
tian manhood could never consent to it. These principles and 
customs are ingrained in the constitution of Hindoo society. They 
are planted there by centuries of religious sanction and imposi- 
tions. It is this which gives them their permanent hold upon the 
people. It is this which renders any reform in India impossible 
which leaves its religion unchanged. 

Political economists and clever magazinists tell us that the best 
missionaries are the plough, the railroad, the printing press and the 
canal. The railway car compelling Brahmin and Sudra, soldier, 
priest and farmer to travel side by side, — this is the great destroyer 
of India’s caste-bound civilization. Notso. The Brahmin at the 
end of this journey is a Brahmin still, and no length of travel will 
land a Sudra any higher up in the social scale than when he 
started. 

A writer upon this subject says that among the Sepoys, a Brah- 
min in the ranks would obey the orders of a low caste officer, but 
out of the ranks, the private would say to his military superior — 
‘¢ Stand off! I am holier than thou.” . 

No; nothing will cure the evils that flow from a false religion, 
but the good that comes from.a true religion. 

And whatever may be said of the comparative morality of chris- 
tian and heathen people, and certainly the displays of honesty by 
nominal christians in India are not calculated to make the Hindoo 
or Mohammedan blush at the comparison, there is yet this grand 
distinction of the christian religion. The evil practices of its 


THE INDIA MISSION. 9 


professors can never find shelter under its sanction. If christians 
are low-lived, inhuman or dishonest, it is always against the pro- 
test of their religion. But the worst evils of Hindoo society are 
under the sanction, yea, they are the traditional requirement, of the 
Hindoo religion. Does not this show that the only hope for India is 
in the change of its religious belief and trust? Some trust in iron 
chariots and some in herses of steam, but for me, my single hope 
for India is in the knowledge of the one true and only God. 

The problem simply stated is this: here are two hundred 
millions of human beings, of the same race as yourselves, their 
fathers going eastward from the old home of the Aryan race, ours 
coming west. They are idolaters and their religion upholds them 
in idolatry. If we are idolaters it is not the fault of our religion. 
We have something, therefore, to give them; a religion, which 
will do for them what it does for us,— rebuke sins and show the 
way to holiness. Shall we give it to them? We can only refuse 
at the price of losing it ourselves; christianity will not keep, save 
in its dispersion. 

Two ways of commending it to India are open to us, one the 
preached word ; and for this I would send to India every year, one 
of the best scholars, the most persuasive preachers, the leading 
minds of the liberal church. A visit by such a man and a ministry 
of three months in Calcutta would make an impression upon the 
religious belief of both native and European residents there. It 
would not occasion any longer absence from the home field, 
whether parish or college, than most ministers take every few 
years for a trip to Europe. It would put our permanent missionary 
in India on a stronger footing and give his ministry the backing 
of high examples of christian learning and character. It would 
sharpen the powers and renew the intellectual life of men among 
us whose learning needs the provocation of dense darkness. If, 
in return, it brought such a man as Chunder Sen to this country, 
it would be an exchange that would involve no robbery from us. 
The other way of commending our gospel to India is .by the 
acted word ; and for this I would strengthen and increase the pres- 
ent facilities for practical christianity there. Besides the schools, 
there should be a pleasant, central reading room and library, with 
all the apparatus of our mission for christian work applicable to 
that locality. I have left myself no time to speak of that native 


10 THE INDIA MISSION. 


theistic church, called the Brahmo Somaj which, without compro- 
mising his christian name and profession, our brother Dall has 
joined within the past year. It is not easy to ascertain the num- 
ber of this society ; one says four thousand and another forty thou- 
sand. Mr. Dall says ‘‘you might as well attempt to count the 
number of trees in a forest, first touched by the rising sun.” 

The progressive wing of this body led by Chunder Sen is nearly, 
if not quite, identical in its platform with this National Conference. 
Its motto, or cry, as it is called (they have no formal creed), is 
‘God our Father, Man our Brother, Christ our Guide.” 

The social significance of Mr. Dall’s joining this native society 
is far more important than its doctrinal bearing. Who that has 
read the wonderful preaching of Sen, with its profound apprehen- 
sion and devout acceptance of spiritual christianity, could avoid 
clasping the hand of fellowship with him and his fellow believers? 
But it is not this agreement of view, so much as the acceptance 
by a white man of place and membership in a native association, 
which makes Mr. Dall’s action so noteworthy in India. The prac- 
tical value of this bold step lies in its appeal from the caste of 
color to the brotherhood of christian equality. 

Is it generally known to what lengths this prejudice of race and 
color governs society in India? That the presence of a native 
gentleman of culture and refinement is not tolerated in good soci- 
ety in Calcutta? Looked at from this point of view, our mission- 
ary’s action in joining a Hindoo fraternity was not unlike the 
devotion of the Moravian missionaries to the West Indies, who 
became slaves that they might teach those bound in slavery and 
convert them to christianity. Not that, Mr. Dall would not find 
peers in intellect and character among his new associates, but the 
victory over social prejudice in joining this fraternity is of the 
character pointed out. It is the very demonstration of christian 
charity, for want of which, confessed christianity makes so slow 
progress in India. 

I say confessed christianity makes slow progress. But the influ- 
ence of English education and missionary devotion cannot be 
tested by the length of the church roll any more than the power of 
the church in America can be measured by the number of pro- 
fessed church members. English education effectually cures its 
pupils of idolatrous belief, however short it comes of changing idol- 
atrous practice. The graduates of the twenty thousand schools 


THE INDIA MISSION. 11 


maintained wholly or in part by government patronage in India 
are candidates for a better religion than popular Brahminism. 
The forty thousand pupils in India who are yearly learning the 
English language, and through that door entering into the thought 
of English history and literature, are sure perverts from the 
faith of their fathers; what shall they be? There is only one 
alternative; christians or atheists. The rebound from spiritual 
despotism is always towards utter unbelief. Thousands in India, 
finding their attenuated faith in the superstition of their childhood 
cut in two by the sharp knife of a government culture, which 
makes no provision for religious education, are to-day sunk in the 
gloom and sorrow of atheism, or lifted into a perilous frivolity, 
having no knowledge or fear of God before their eyes. If you 
have a religion which can supply this lost faith in spiritual reali- 
ties, you have a call to India. If not, then stay away. 

I cannot believe, however, that the indifference, yes, I will say 
the unfriendliness, with which our mission to India has sometimes 
been regarded is due to the absence of vital christianity among us, 
so much as to the ignorance of the subject into which we have 
suffered ourselves to fall. Would the women of our churches rest 
idly in their pews and sewing circles, if they knew that one’ hun- 
dred millions of their sisters in India were kept in the lowest 
ignorance, on the shameful pretext that knowledge would become 
in woman’s hands an implement of lust? What do those earnest 
women, who are striving here in Boston to uplift the standard of 
female education, say to this darkened land where the jewel of 
truth is worn only by the courtesan and regarded as the evidence 
of her degradation ? 

Already through the Zenana schools, under the patronage of 
other christian bodies, thirty-nine thousand, six hundred and forty- 
seven women and girls are receiving an education. Miss Cham- 
berlain is laboring in our employ in the same direction. Give 
her your organized help, women of the Unitarian church! Be 
yourselves, as the women of other denominations are, a mission- 
ary power, and press on the work of uplifting woman’s culture 
and woman’s influence in the far East! 

The theme is broad and I must leave it scarcely visited, as our 
pioneer in the India mission did, when he showed his face to the 
longing company at Madras and sailed away. 

But surely you will send another after me. You will not hear 


12 THE INDIA MISSION. 


this cry of a shipwrecked land, beyond the sea, and send no life- 
boat to the rescue. You will feel in the degradation of India 
something degrading to yourselves, as christians, so long as you 
do nothing to change it. You will maintain, enlarge, develop and 
finally perfect the India Mission. 


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